About Me

Manu Sharma New Delhi / Gurgaon, India

Since mid 2006 I have grappled with climate change and what it means for us. As an activist and campaigner, I sought to learn and simultaneously, attempted to influence the issues surrounding it - in technology and policy advocacy. As a consultant, I studied markets and created portfolios in sustainability services and renewable energy investment.

After thousands of hours of research, tenacious activism, working up-close with NGOs as well as the industry, delivering about two dozen public talks, countless conferences, hundreds of online discussions, a few media appearances (including Reuters, News Television, and BBC radio), and continuous evolution of my own ideas about what ought to be done - I may have found some answers but the issue remains far from being addressed.

In the despair filled world of climate change the only place I've found real and lasting hope is in a beautiful vision inspired by "The Ringing Cedars of Russia" book series by Vladimir Megre. The books have triggered a transition movement in Russia and have profoundly influenced me. I am now working towards the vision.

Climate Revolution Initiative, an RTI campaign I founded and ran for a few years is now retired. I no longer deliver talks. I still consider myself an activist though and occasionally post on Green-India group started over nine years ago.

Older entries in this blog relate to my former occupation in user experience design; long time interest in business innovation, strategy, ethics; and venture creation.

Image on top of this bar is courtesy book covers of The Ringing Cedars series published under Croatian translation. (Source)

October 27, 2004

IndiaCHI is now Orange Hues

Back in September 2003, I started IndiaCHI - a team blog for a bunch of us here in Delhi and elsewhere in India, folks who came together[1] due to our common interest in usability and HCI related areas. As it turned out Navneet[2] and I were the only ones contributing regularly and with time it became a personal thing. This was until March when we moved our house and didn’t have internet access for a while. I’ve been procrastinating ever since [yes, I’m a chronic procrastinator!]

I have been selective in making entries in the past but I hope I made some good, thoughtful ones[3]. Unless I had an important perspective to share, I generally avoided commenting on news just because it was news. I avoided giving out links because you can get them everywhere. I refrained myself from posting about cool, fun stuff because I wanted to remain on topic.

The thumb rule was, to write only about stuff I believed in and was really excited about or where, I could add a new perspective. Not writing too often has its drawbacks though. No one likes to see the same post on top over and over again. So I don’t know if I’m going to follow the same rigour.

There have been a few major common threads in the past entries so far. One is dissatisfaction with status quo and as a corollary, celebration of innovation. I define the highest form of innovation as identifying critical problems never addressed before and solving them in unexpected ways.

Second is to approach design or any other problem by simply - thinking through. If the dotcom bust hasn’t eroded the myth that time to market is one of the most critical component in a product’s success then Google and Gmail should. Investing time in contemplating a problem often leads to radical innovation.

Third is that the big picture is fundamentally more important than the details. The answer is to always begin with the bigger picture but without losing sight of the details. Another common overlapping thread is an absolute faith in customer good. As Google says in its corporate philosophy[4] "focus on the user and all else will follow." Mark Hurst calls it The Customer-Centric Worldview[5]. It simply states that “business revolves around the customer” and therefore, “companies that focus on creating a good customer experience will succeed far above those that do not.”